As an early adopter and IT innovator, news agency Reuters has had Web 2.0 and the consumerisation of IT on its radar for a while. ‘The way teenagers utilise technology day to day will drive a very different adoption of IT,’ says David Lister, CIO at Reuters.

When those teenagers leave school and university they will take their habits into the workplace. Unless companies change, these teenagers could be in for a culture shock. ‘Imagine sitting a 14-year-old in front of an SAP screen and asking them to intuitively use that,’ he says. ‘The experience you present drives the adoption of that service.’

Reuters is proactively looking at ways to use new consumer technology and is keeping an eye on what motivates these 14-year olds. The key, says Lister, is to create a flexible infrastructure that can quickly slot in or discard new innovations or technologies to help its workforce.

‘We are going through a major transformation of the workplace and aim to acquire a whole range of services on plug-and-play basis,’ he says.

‘First you need to create an agile infrastructure where you can take a development of new technology and inventions and use them as you like, so you have to put in place an agile platform and have open imagination of how we can use these tools.’

Reuters encourages staff to experiment with technology and when it spots something that is making a difference to the business, it formally adopts it. ‘You have to give people the freedom to innovate, explore and experience,’ he says.

Wikis and blogs are consumer innovations that have jumped the divide, as development teams use Wikis to share information and blogging is used in the service management team to share information.

While it encourages innovation, Lister acknowledges that it is important to create a line between control and anarchy. ‘We’re trying to get a balance between innovation and entrepreneurial talent and take it and make it an industrial strength,’ he says.

Along with many other firms, Reuters has made the step into virtual reality, with its own bureau chief in Second Life, the 3D virtual world where people interact, play or do business.

‘From a company perspective, we’re investing in building online capabilities within Second Life. We see the ability to create training in there, meetings and broadcasts of events and news to create a difference experience,’ says Lister.